Lawyers fail to appreciate the importance of facts beyond change when developing their trial themes. You will lose all credibility with the jury if you ignore facts beyond change. If you do not incorporate the facts beyond change in your defense, it will be very difficult to win.

A fact beyond change is just that, a fact that you must accept and that you can’t do anything about. If your client admitted to being alone with the child at issue and you can’t explain why he or she would say this when it wasn’t true, then this must be part of your trial theme in one way or another. It must be explained or dealt with. Ignoring it will not help you. Another example is if your client has a criminal record and it will come out. In one trial I had, my client had a criminal record. Instead of just ignoring it, I told the jury that my client was likely set up by another party because they knew about his criminal record and he would make a good fall guy. Thus, instead of running from his criminal record, it became part of the theme.

The same holds true for a sex crime case. In just about every trial, there will be bad facts that you will have to deal with. A trial lawyer’s job is to determine how to deal with those facts. With the ones that are beyond change, ignoring them will not make it go away. Thus, if they are not part of your theme in one way or another, you lessen your chances for a great result.